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Friday, February 1, 2013

Port Charles: A Primer

Port Charles was a 30 min soap that ran from 1997-2003. It was sandwiched in my area between the news and AMC. The original concept was to focus on first year residents at GH. Some characters such as Scott Baldwin, Lucy Coe and Kevin Collins and Karen Wexler went "over" to the soap from GH. Others, like Livvy, Alison and Caleb were introduced. (Livvy was found to be Kevin's biological daugher). Later, Ian Buchanan joined the cast and played vampire Joshua Temple. On Monday, December 4th, 2000, Port Charles began airing Port Charles: Fate, the first of twelve, thirteen week story arcs known as 'books'. Port Charles third book, which began June 4, 2001, added something new to its canvas...vampires. Then werewolves...and an angel.

When Kelly Monaco joined GH after PC was cancelled, her character was obviously changed to Sam McCall, grifter with an edge. Poor Kevin and Lucy didn't make it back on the main show. I was happy to see them now!!

Things I remember about Port Charles was the lighthouse where Lucy and Kevin lived, how zexy Caleb and Livvy were and the bar "The Recovery Room" where Mike was the "mixologist"! Serena Baldwin was on as well, daughter of Lucy and Kevin. Rumor has it, she may be returning to GH at some point. (Carly Schroeder)

Here's a little taste of PC: lifted from 'Souls Tied in Eternity: Caleb and Livvy" on Tripod. Caleb is a blood-thirsty vampire who blows into town and holds everyone in his
grip. Caleb turns some residents of Port
Charles into vampires but what he wants the most is to win the heart of
Livvie
Locke and marry her. Caleb does manage to
make Livvie fall in love with him but in the end she is the one that
destroys
and kills him.

Caleb then enters back into Port Charles
as Stephen Clay, famous musician, but
everyone knows that he is really Caleb back from the dead. Now he has
some kind
of water in a blue bottle that he always
drinks so he doesn't have to feed on anyone. Caleb has come back again
for
Livvie because he still loves and wants her.

Caleb
pulled
all of the goodness from Livvie's body and
made Tess. Tess took over and somehow got Livvie in her body because
she
didn't want Caleb to hurt Livvie. Caleb
tried everything to get Livvie out but failed. Tess brought out the
good
in him and he started to fall for her. He
couldn't bite her because she was too pure and good.

In the end he admitted he
made a mistake and wanted Tess and Livvie to
be whole again. All he had to do was love ALL of Livvie, the good and
the
bad. When he did that then Tess went back
inside of Livvie and became whole again and came back to Caleb.

A bit of the RAFE/ALISON story: From Wiki Rafe Kovich is a vampire slayer who is related to Lucy. He comes to Port Charles in order to help the citizens of that city destroy the vampire Caleb Morely. Years before in 1991, Caleb killed Rafe. In an angel form, Rafe has
come back to destroy him. When he meets Alison, she is dating her
current love interest, Jamal. During one of their first encounters Rafe
uses his angel powers to heal Alison after a tree falls on her. Alison
later learns he is an angel and agrees to keep it a secret. He shows her
some of his magic by making a pink rose grow. He slowly begins to fall
in love with her. There's a bunch more but it would take the entire page. LOL. He ends up going back to heaven, then making a deal with a soul from hell to come back to Port Charles. Rafe has no idea who he really is however--and you know, calamity ensues. There you have some of what Port Charles was about. No wonder you may be confused at this point. BTW, Alison wound up PG by Caleb not Rafe. That's the big angst with her. Well, not any more because she's dead. LOL Hope this helps a little... not sure if it will be more confusing for you or will give you a window into what's happening now. See ya on Sunday for the Surgery!!

23 comments:

I love my soaps..Well that is only GH now..But once upon a time that included Port Charles..Thanks for posting the link..I hope eventually that Lucy realizes that there are not vampires and that she had a break with reality. I do want her to discover that she invented those things but that there was a real Caleb and a Rafe so that Michael Easton if he cannot play John can play Caleb..I also would be so happy if GH would call Brian Gaskill and have him come to GH.. He could mentor young Rafe and have lots of angst over having abandoned Alison when he found that she "cheated" on him with Caleb. Not that she knew what she was doing.My favorite soap characters of all time were Tad (Michael Knight on All My Children), any character that Michael Easton or Roger Howarth have created and Brian Gaskill as Rafe on Port Charles and Bobby Warner on ALl My Children. So it would make me happy to have as many of them as possible on GH..I know it is way to much to ask to have Michael Knight ever cast on GH.. But Rafe would make sense to the storyline to have Brian Gaskill join the cast..Wish I could give their writing team some ideas..Karen would be another great one to give storyline ideas..Karen was such a genius discovering Faison idenity before it was revealed that he was not Duke..

Ahhh good memories! :) Altho the arcs were annoying. It took me awhile to get used to how it kept changing from one arc to another. :)There were werewolves? I stopped watching when the vampires arc was over.

I have absolutely no interest in the history of Port Charles. I never watched it. It was bad enough I had to try to wrap my head around all the history from OLTL which I never watched either. Now they want to shove another show down my throat.

I've watched General Hospital faithfully for over 40 years. I stayed with it when it was starting to decline, and hung in there when they started combining it with OLTL. Now they have brought in these Port Charles characters and their silly vampire storyline, and to top it off they are thinking of keeping the OLTL actors and calling them something else, perhaps even Caleb or other PC characters. I'm afraid this is definitely the final straw for me.

You know what I'd like to see...how the vampire thing should wrap up (eventually)? I'd like one scene of Michael Easton and KeMo as Caleb and Livvie, in some European castle, in a satin-sheet covered bed, with their fangs, talking to each other and wondering what kind of lives their "human counterparts" are living, and having a little sexy time.

Then we know that all the events on PC were real, Lucy isn't crazy, and that Caleb and Livvie somehow assumed the physical attributes of John and Sam early on. That's a nice nod to us folks who watched PC (and liked it) as well as honoring the GH characters and their histories.

Serena was the daughter of Scott Baldwin and his true love, Danielle, the girl who died in the snow. Lucy was the surrogate who carried the baby to term. I think Serena lived with her grandparents, Lee and Gail, sometimes.

From all that plot discription, you can propably see why many of us tuned out. The show started out as a pretty good soap, but when ratings didn't rise fast enough, they got desperate and vampires began. It became the Caleb and Livvie Show and I disliked both on that show. (Kelly seemed to whisper all the time.)

So far we only have Allison over from PC and she's gone already, so no one should be complaining about the PC cast joining the show. Lucy and Kevin belong on GH.

I'm so bummed about ME having to go back to OLTL--that show had wonderful actors, but they can do without the 3 brought over. Just say they moved away, big deal! I admit OLTL depended a bit on all 3, but they have plenty of other terrific mainstay actors and characters, such as Viki and Clint and Bo and Nora, Dorian and David. I guess PP is thinking it will be hard enough to get the show up and running online without losing 3 very popular characters. But legal or not, it really isn't fair to the actors who signed with ABC and have been here a year now.

One actor from PC who could fit in at GH is Nolan North who played one of the original young docs. I really thought he would be hired at GH after PC was canceled because he had a good following.

I pretty much hated all the vampire/fantasy stuff, though it was obvious that Michael Easton had star power. OLTL hired the actor as soon as PC ended.

I feel for Ron at GH, having to deal with writing out these 3 characters who have been so beautifully fitted into the show. Surely they could have worked something out--maybe having them appear on both shows for awhile, as Wally Kerth is doing, until they can work them out of OLTL.

"They may have performed their last sizzling tango for the cameras, but the chemistry between Kelly Monaco and Val Chmerkovskiy is still red-hot. In Touch can confirm that the General Hospital star, 36, and her Dancing with the Stars: All-Stars partner, 26, are officially dating. "She's ended things with her old boy friend (actor Heath Freeman) says a source. "She's telling all her friends that she and Val are in love."

I don't understand the hate that seems to be based simply on the fact that the show has introduced characters (or storyline) from another show (OLTL or PC). They introduce new storylines AND characters all the time - what's teh difference if the source is "original" (and let's face it, there's nothing original anymore) or if tied to something previously outside of the show? Whether it's good or not is one thing, but I've so much animosity which seems to stem from the fact that something was introduced from another show (do you feel left out of all the history?).

As a viewer I feel totally frustrated by all of this. Imagine what Ron C is going thru, having to rewrite a murder mystery in which McBain would have been heavily involved. I guess he can just confine Todd to Ferncliff for now, or have him escape and Starr go lookiing for him. But McBain is a whole other issue.

I've grown so much fonder of the McBain character on GH than I was of him on OLTL. I liked him, but his constantly changing girlfriends didn't work well for me--he was too easily distracted. He and Kelly were a great pair, but not to be. And I REALLY disliked him with dim-bulb Natalie whom I suspect he will have to take up with again, and she drags him down...

All this was very abrupt so it must be driving the actors and the writers of GH nuts! PP should just let it go--after all, these were out-of-work actors a year ago (due to PP's stumble) and they deserve some credit for working so hard (and successfully) to integrate their characters into GH.

PP is planning only a half hour show, which says they will have to cut some cast. Let it be GH's 3!

Dr. Linda, for me the dislike of the OLTL interlopers is because the current producer and writer came to GH from OLTL and immediately transferred in OLTL characters and pushed the history of that show down our throats. Thomas, Jack, etc have never been on GH but were mentioned more then Bobbie or Laura or other core GH characters. To me it felt, and continues to feel, like the new head regime at GH have a stronger aliance to OLTL then GH and were trying to force it on us GH only viewers.

It might also have something to do with the fact that I think Starr, Tea and McBain can not act.

YES I would rather brand spanking new characters then OLTL or Port Charles imports.

I wonder how much of the new head regimes time will be spent worrying over the fate of their OLTL friends? They need to remeber they are now in charge of GH and focus on that.

Thanks friscogh for a thoughtful response. I must admit that I had stopped watching all my ABC soaps for quite a few years and only came back at the very end of AMC (when Dixie came back) and OLTL (when real Todd came back of course) and they both were a pleasure to watch at the end. I had started to watch GH prior when Vanessa marcil came back (and oh what a waste that was) but I hung in out of some loyalty thinking my one little viewership could maybe help. But it was rough, really rough at times to keep myself from deleting the automatic DVRing. When the OLTL guys came over, it got better for me and then to bring over Roger Howarth (who I love) it really made me happy (and to see his chemistry w/Carly which helped me to like her more, though i also really liked her w/Jonny). So I'm an "old-timer" who has seen improvements. I LOVE bringing back some of the faves (my girl crush Anna, felicia, Robert and now LUCY!! and all the others) so I'm feeling pretty good and trying to ignore (or speed through) what I don't like (Britch is awful, Sabrina is a little painful but usually means more Emma who is adorable, Sonny is a hit & miss, etc.). Anyway, thanks for letting me rant!

Dr Linda - I have to admit I have grown to enjoy Todd. Although sometimes I feel his character and antics are so strong that I tire of seeing him so much. I feel the same way about Carly and Sonny as well. If they could find a way to use Todd a little more moderately I would like to see him stay on GH. I am not sure I would enjoy seeing the actor come back as a new character though...he is so strongly identified with this character even I, a OLTL loather, would have a hard time seeing him playing a different character.

I also agree that he has great chemistry with Carly. I, however, see major fire between Carly and AJ and love the GH history that could play on.